Cornflowers
by Julyza
Summary: Mary contemplates her desire to become a spinster as her mother drones on about a prospective suitor. My entry for the Flower Language Challenge at the Writers Anonymous Forum.


This is an entry for the Flower Language Challenge at the Writers Anonymous forum.

Cornflowers/bachelor buttons: single blessedness

For the fandom Blind coming from the forum: Mary Bennet is the third Bennet daughter, younger sister of Jane and Elizabeth Bennet, the latter being the main protagonist of the Jane Austen Novel, _Pride and Prejudice_.

This takes place two years after the novel, which takes place during the Regency Period in the late Georgian Era in England.

Mary's first line of dialogue is actually Proverbs 31 verse 30, it doesn't fit very well and that is intentional -because that is one of Mary's character traits.

Enjoy!

* * *

"Lady Lucas told me that Mr. Smith was delighted to make your acquaintance and hopes to call on us tomorrow.

You sly thing, your moralizing and talking about Fordyce's Sermons yesterday seems to have attracted a man for once."

Mrs. Bennet's words, although well meant, made Mary momentarily wish for the lack of attention she received growing up. Now that there was only Kitty to contend for her mother's attention, she almost regretted having ever been envious of the attention Lydia, her youngest sister, received.

"_Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised_," Mary replies tactfully, she has long since accepted her mother's inability to understand her.

Miss Mary Bennet liked to be the center of attention for once, yet the thought of having to knowing that if her marriage failed it would be her fault and she couldn't curse any potential children with parents who do not love each other.

Ever since her elder sisters had married, Mary was tossed into the path of any eligible man under the age of thirty along with a reminder from her Aunt Philipps that spinsters went to hell.

The new Vicar, a Mr. John Smith, had been the latest man deemed worthy of her hand.

Every man of the cloth was deemed worthy of her, considering there was a curate and two parsons her mother has brought to her attention.

"Your Aunt Phillips was so worried for you; my poor sister still believes that nonsense of spinsters becoming Ape-Leaders as punishment. Thank the heavens for Mr. Smith!"

Mary doesn't manage to make speak like a rational individual and just gapes like a fish while her mother goes on speaking even when Mary has not spoken anything to keep the conversation going.

"We do not know if he has come to see me, he seemed quite interested in Papa's bookroom." Mary interrupts her mother once she is capable of conversation.

"Nonsense, dear girl, he would not have been praising your virtues to the neighbors if he were not interested in you."

There was nothing to convince her mother otherwise it seemed.

It was not that Mr. Smith was a disagreeable man who was forced into talking with the plainest girl in Hertfordshire, but Mary had no desire to get married and have copious amounts of children.

Even if the man in question shared her love for God and his Scriptures and seemed to genuinely enjoy her company. He had all the things that Mary would want to see in a husband.

The only problem, Mary Bennet now has the privilege to choose and has willingly chosen spinsterhood.

If he had come two years ago, she may be content and even happy with such a husband, but, alas, Mary Bennet no longer saw the need to get married now that her future was secured.

Some ladies are born without that need to be married in order to find happiness, maybe, just maybe, her family will not mind her being one of them.

On days like this Mary Bennet is reminded of the daughter of Jephthah, who out of love for her father, and most importantly God, took a vow of chastity and served God in his Tabernacle for the rest of her days.

While Jephthah's daughter was celebrated by the tribes of Israel and all of Christendom, Mary was sure her mother would rather eat her own foot before letting her daughter remain in unmarried.

"Oh! You must play something tomorrow; he must be reminded what an accomplished young woman you are."

Her mother does not seem to notice how much the topic irritates her and continues rambling on and on about how happy Mary would be as Mrs. Smith. Mary looked at the arrangement of cornflowers on top of her pianoforte and briefly considered running into the sanctuary of her room.

"You must wear your new morning dress and my brooch, the cornflower one that matches the flowers on the dress. I can't have you ruin your chances with your plain brown dress."

Mrs. Bennet's unashamed preference for cornflowers, particularly the wild ones that graced their lands in the summer, was something she passed down to her daughters and one of the few things she had in common with her husband.

Whenever they were in season, one would always find them in every vase in the house -especially in the vase that sits on the window of the drawing room.

Single Blessedness, that is what her new book claimed cornflowers meant. Perhaps Mr. Smith would know their meaning and cease his unwanted attentions.

Ironically, Fanny Bennet nee Gardener loved cornflowers, or bluets as she sometimes called them. Her mother had lovingly stitched them in their clothes as children. Pressed them on the poetry book she had trouble reading, embroidered on her favorite shawl, and according to lore had her wedding dress made in cornflower blue to match her cornflower blue eyes.

Mary was afraid what would happen if Mrs. Bennet discovered what her favorite flower meant. She promised her father that she would never tell her mother that her favorite flowers were synonymous with celibacy and never marrying.

"Mr. Smith seems like such an amiable person; I have no doubt you will be as happy as your sisters!"

Mary's mother grabs both of her daughter's hands, happy in her dreams of Mary's future.

What if Mr. Smith is a cruel man? No one would believe her, some of their neighbors had trouble believing Mr. Wickham beat his wife like a dog, and her brother by marriage was a known scoundrel!

"Maybe once you are married you can live in Longbourn, the Vicarage only has two bedchambers and the drawing room doesn't have space for your pianoforte."

Her mother went on about her plans for Mary's future -with a man who has lived in their village for only a fortnight- and Mary only nodding her head in agreement. If only she could tell her how much she detests the idea of marriage.

Maybe now that the entail was broken and Jane's newborn son set to inherit Longbourn, her mother wouldn't be so adamant in marrying her off to some poor unsuspecting man.

Mary forces a complacent smile pretending she is listening and wonders when will her mother give up on her.

She could live in the Dower house, when her nephew came into his inheritance.

Her Uncles could help her make a few sound investments and be able to open her own establishment. The two Miss Bennets now had dowries to give them enough to have their own household at a respectable neighborhood in London.

It's her favorite daydream; to have her own home where she can forget matchmaking mamas, complaints about her musical talent or her reflections based on the Scriptures and her second favorite book - James Fordyce's Sermons for Young Women.

Mary did not care if it was a small house in Meryton, a hut in the Colonies or even a splendid townhouse at St. James, the only thing that mattered about that house was that it would be hers and hers alone.

Until it happens, Mary Bennet must endure these conversations with her mother.


End file.
